Intersections - Winter 2017

Winter 2017
Dean's Corner

Glocal, transnational, or, my favorite, gleegional: there really is no good word for it. But we all know that we live our lives at the intersection of the local and the global, and that our understanding of that intersection is shaped by our engagements with people and the spaces we inhabit.

This issue of Intersections focuses on a few of the many initiatives in IAS that link the global and the local, with an emphasis on changing the center-periphery dynamics that distort the knowledge we have of the world. Each of the features describes a method of allowing local knowledge to inform the global.

Our faculty feature looks at a collaboration between Jin-Kyu Jung and Santiago Lopez that engages local communities in participatory geographic studies of climate change, bridging scientific and local knowledge systems.

In the alumni feature, Jessica Crawford leverages her Master of Arts in Policy Studies training to bring healthcare to the ‘last mile’ as part of VillageReach. Her work seeks to mitigate the disconnect between global level policy and local realities, encouraging a multi-directional flow of information.

In the student feature, Master of Arts in Cultural Studies student Meshell Sturgis offers a reflection on time spent in different spaces, based on her participation in an Exploration Seminar in Tanzania where she and 11 other UW students engaged critical perspectives on ecotourism.

As always, you can learn more about what students, faculty, and alumni are doing on the IAS News Blog. To keep up to date on IAS events open to the campus and the public, you can also subscribe to a weekly digest of upcoming events here. If you are an IAS alum, discover ways to connect and get involved by visiting our alumni page online.

Past issues of Intersections are accessible from the right sidebar here.

Feel free to send comments on these stories or ideas for others to IASinfo@uw.edu.